Anthropic Principle
by Willow-Bee the Cat
Summary: A chance encounter leads to a hunt through time and space to find Bellatrix LeStrange before she destroys the space-time continuum. A DC Comics-Harry Potter crossover.
1. Prologue

Author's Note: This is the first story in a series. I'm not sure how big the series will be, but this story should only be around ten chapters long. I think. Well, it will be no more than twenty chapters long. Because I tend somehow get myself into writing epics, I've decided that after Once Might Have Been is finished, I'll write series instead.

Secondly, I know I should be working on my other story. I am, but I've hit a bit of a snag. Whenever that happens, I just need to work on something else for a little while before trying to go back and fix the snag with a clear mind. So don't worry. I fully intend to put out another chapter of Once Might Have Been later on this week.

Thirdly, have fun guessing who the person at the end of the chapter is. Yes, he is a cannon DC character. No, I will not tell you who until the next chapter comes up.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor make a profit from all characters and situations herein belonging to J.K. Rowling or DC Comics.

Summary: A chance encounter leads to a hunt through time and space to find Bellatrix LeStrange before she destroys the space-time continuum. A DC Comics-Harry Potter crossover.

Rating: T

Pairings: Some UST, no true pairing-subject to change at Author's whim.

Spoilers: All seven books for Harry Potter, everything before Identity Crisis for DC.

Timeline: Takes place directly after the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Takes place somewhere between when Jason Todd died and Hal Jordon got up close and personal with the _Space Bug of doooooooooom_! (Sorry, couldn't resist making fun of the whole Parallax thing, although I personally like the explanation a lot because of how well it explains everything which happened.)

* * *

Prologue

She ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding being hit by an unidentifiable pink curse. Hermione rolled behind a trash bin, only to be forced to waste precious moments as she untangled her skirts, which had all but trapped her legs. The sixteen year old winced as she felt what could only be several of her stitches ripping through her skin.

She had to end this fight. Now.

Hermione got to her knees, only to duck as a curse hit the bins she was using for cover, send shrapnel in all directions. She was in no condition to fight, and she knew it. It had been less than two weeks since the battle at the Department of Mysteries and she was still suffering from the after effects of the curse Dolohov had hit her with.

Mentally preparing herself, Hermione stood. She was a Gryffindor for a reason, and she would not allow a Death Eater to get the better of her.

Hermione shouted the first curse which came to mind, followed closely by a second. Bellatrix LeStrange danced neatly out of the way of the first, only to be clipped by the second. The woman dabbed at the blood as if surprised Hermione had managed to hit her at all.

"The Mudblood has some bite in her after all," laughed Bellatrix before renewing her attack.

What was a blood purist like Bellatrix doing at a Renaissance fair in Central Park anyway? How had she managed to leave the United Kingdom? Hermione shook her head and threw up a shield charm. She wasn't sure she wanted the answer to those questions.

Hermione glanced at the other patrons of the fair and made a decision. Most of them seemed to think her duel with Bellatrix yet another show. Surely they had to realize this was more than smoke and mirrors. This was the same city which hosted the Teen Titans or whatever they were calling themselves these days. Was there something about New York which made its residents suicidal?

She comforted herself with the knowledge that her parents were at the convention. At least they were safe from this insanity. Although, she supposed that if it were not for the Orthodontics Convention, the three of them would never have been in the position to run into Bellatrix in the first place.

But if she had not been here, who would have protected the Muggles from Bellatrix?

Hermione moved out into the open. Throwing spells at Bellatrix, she made her way toward one of the few breaks in the crowd. She had to lead the woman away from the crowd before she harmed any more people. At least one person had already been hit with a slicing hex, shortly before the crowd had begun to form, and still the people crowded around to watch the fight.

As she ran, she grabbed a handful of her skirt halfway down her thighs and tucked it into her belt to help free her legs. Though she was not dressed in medieval clothing or even Wizarding robes, she was wearing a fashionable Wizarding outfit.

As expected, Bellatrix apparated to a spot in front of Hermione. She skidded to a halt and changed directions, throwing a Reductor in Bellatriz's general direction to ensure her continuing interest. Hermione had read up on the woman shortly she'd found out what Bellatrix and her cohorts had done Frank and Alice Longbottom. That, along with the encounter in the Department of Mysteries had led Hermione to believe the woman enjoyed cat and mouse games.

Hermione leaped over a chain fence and onto a path, not bothering to slow her speed. For one awful second she'd thought she was fall, but luckily managed to remain upon her feet. Where were Aurors when you needed them?

"Merlin's bloody balls," muttered Hermione under her breath as Bellatrix cut her off yet again.

She'd forgotten that North American magical communities were not organized as their European counterparts. Rather, there were scattered Wizarding enclaves similar in manner to the Greek city states of old. There was a Wizarding enclave in what had originally been New Amsterdam before the English had taken Manhattan from the Dutch, but few of their members ventured far from their Lower East Side sanctuary. It seemed she had to find some way to take care of Bellatrix herself.

At that thought, Hermione reached into her backpack, all the while trying to hit Bellatrix with a hex or curse. She quickly pulled a vial containing a dose of Pepperup potion and downed it. She knew she'd need the energy the potion used to aid recovery and fend off illnesses provided. She was nearly at the end of her rope. Though she was no longer on ten potions a day to aid her recovery, she was still taking six different potions daily.

"Nowhere to run to now, is there?" smirked Bellatrix.

Hermione let out a string of curses which would have impressed a sailor. How could she have been so stupid? She'd allowed Bellatrix to herd her into a dead end.

She turned around to face Bellatrix. Hermione was struck by an idea, but she knew it would either enrage Bellatrix to the point where she made a mistake or to the point where she stopped playing games with Hermione.

Gathering her courage, Hermione said, "I didn't take you for much of a sight seer. Did your Half-Blood master give you some time off as a reward for the Department of Mysteries. Oh, wait, you failed your mission. Harry destroyed the prophecy." She gave her a mock look of sadness. "Were you laid off for your poor workmanship?"

Bellatrix gave her a look of rage rather similar to the one upon her wanted poster. "How dare you imply my master is a Mudblood like you!"

"There's no implication," smirked Hermione. "He's a Half-Blood. His Daddy was a Muggle." She continued in a sing song voice, using everything Harry had told her over the years and a few things she thought up on the spot. "A dirty nasty Muggle who left his witch of a wife to die and his bastard Mudblood son to grow up in a dirty Muggle orphanage."

That was when the barrage of spells began. Hermione threw up a shield as she ducked out of the way, searching desperately for any form of cover. And then a spell managed to get through her shield, hitting her with the full force of Bellatrix's rage.

It was unlike anything she'd ever felt before. A detached, clinical part of her mind told Hermione that it was because the Cruciatus Curse caused every nerve in her body to believe that it was experiencing an overload of pain. Not that the clinical, detached part of her mind was of much help.

Somebody was screaming. Who was screaming like that? Were they being mugged? Surely with the racket they were making, somebody would come to their aid. Oh, part of Hermione wanted to laugh, she was the person screaming.

How long this stretched on for, Hermione did not know. It felt like hours, but surely that could not be right. Bellatrix had personally driven Alice Longbottom, a very well respected and seasoned Auror, insane within twenty minutes.

And then the pain stopped.

It took Hermione a moment to make herself stop screaming. Dazed, she barely managed to force herself to open her eyes. The sun was directly above her. Oh, it had to have been less than half an hour since her battle with Bellatrix had begun, since it had been noon precisely when she'd run into the deranged Azkaban escapee.

As Hermione forced herself to sit up, wincing occasionally at the twinge of pain any movement caused and the stiffness her limbs, she wondered to herself why Bellatrix was not attacking her. Or at least taunting her. Perhaps it was another of her twisted games.

Pulling her legs beneath her body, Hermione turned to where she'd last seen Bellatrix. She blinked in surprise, not quite connecting the image for a full minute. Bellatrix and a teenage boy-or perhaps it was a man-were wrestling upon the ground. And then Bellatrix managed to get her wand into the proper position to do a spell.

The boy was thrown several feet into the air only to land heavily between Hermione and Bellatrix. As if Bellatrix had not noticed that Hermione was aware-and perhaps she truly had not noticed-she turned her attention to the boy.

"Crucio!" cried Bellatrix, all but foaming at the mouth.

Hermione winced at her rescuer's cries of pain. She pushed herself to her feet, only to stumble and nearly fall. She had obviously moved too quickly. Hermione steeled herself as she tried to decide what to do.

"Let him go, Bellatrix," said Hermione.

Bellatrix blinked at her stupidly, as if surprised that Hermione was coherent. "Little Mudblood's tougher than I thought."

The spell was lifted from the boy as Bellatrix pointed her wand at Hermione. The two began to fling spells at one another as they ducked and dodged. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the boy get to his feet unsteadily. This had to end before anybody else was harmed.

She tried desperately to find a spell which would get past Bellatrix's defenses and put her down for the count. Finally, she decided upon a spell which could get her the Dementor's Kiss if performed upon British soil. Luckily, there were no such restrictions in the Americas. Perhaps the months spent perusing books clandestinely liberated from the Black family library would come in use after all.

Hermione barely noticed the spell heading in her general directed as she yelled, "Ihfrokuv!"

A swirling purple beam left her wand as it headed toward Bellatrix only to hit the spell her enemy had cast. She saw but a moment of the beams crashing into each other and combining as a large body smashed into her, dragging her to the ground. A moment later she realized that the large mass was the boy, using his own body to shield her from the reaction of the two spells combining.

There was a flash of brown light, followed by darkness as Hermione lost consciousness.


	2. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Hi, I know it's been absolutely forever since I posted the prologue of this story and it seemed like it was going to sit abandoned forever. As you can see, that is no longer the case. My current plan is to get the rest of the story out before we reach 2011. I really shouldn't be all that long, maybe 7-10 chapters, excluding prologue and epilogue.

I would like to thank my wonderful beta, Danrilor, who was kind enough to beta this chapter for me.

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

Hermione let out a groan of pain as she regained consciousness. She felt as if all the stitches keeping her wound closed had popped, although she was certain that she would have bled out long before she could awaken if that were the case. She was suddenly overcome by the stiffness in her limbs and the lingering, aching pain.

Her eyes snapped open as the memory of what had led up to her current position hit her. Carefully, she sat up as she looked around. No Bellatrix was to be seen, but the boy who'd interfered lay upon the ground several feet away. She crawled over and checked his pulse. Once she'd ascertained he was still alive, she cast a diagnostic charm which showed that he'd no injuries in need of medical care.

_We will both need to be treated for cruciatus exposure. _She heard a voice say, and it took a moment to realize that it was her own thought. The lingering effect of the pain curse was extremely disorienting.

She did her best to ascertain precisely where they were. She and her newfound companion were in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by trees and bushes. Were they even still in Central Park, let alone Manhattan?

Glancing about a second time, she cast several discrete wards to ensure she and her new friend would not be discovered. She then pushed the straps of her dress off of her shoulders and unbuttoned her underclothes. First she would analyze the extent of her injuries, and she would then proceed to see what she could do to awaken the boy… although perhaps man would be a more appropriate term.

Hermione wished she had chosen to wear a bra today, but that wasn't an attractive option given the nature of with her current injuries. Instead she'd chosen to wear more comfortable Wizarding undergarments; namely a loosely laced corset which provided snug support for her breasts without exacerbating her broken ribs. She had layered this over a cotton undershirt and Capri-like cotton pants. The ensemble was comfortable and functional but it made bending a little difficult. Over the corset she wore a high necked, golden yellow and white checked gingham dress with three quarter length sleeves. Over that was an off white sleeveless, square necked overdress several inches shorter than the undergarment with sprigs of purple and white flowers embroidered around the neckline and hem and dotting the skirt.

She unhooked the corset in the front, leaving the laces in the back alone and pushed down the neck of her undershirt. Several of her stitches between her breasts and up over her collar bone had been ripped from her skin. She found that she was grateful that they had been tied separately. It had been surprisingly easy to convince Luna to sneak sterilized sutures sent by her parents into the hospital wing. With a sigh she took the small first aid kit from her backpack and removed the stitches which had been ruined, first cutting them with her pocket knife, then pulling them out with her fingers. Hermione carefully did her best to sanitize partially open wound, then used sutures to close them again. It was painful and her hands trembled, but she did not waver in the task, focusing on it with the same determination that she had once reserved for her schoolbooks.

She covered her wound with bandages and put her dress back on. Then she went to see what she could do for her companion only to find him awake and sitting up. She wondered how long he had been looking at her, feeling a flush rise to her face.

He was a rather attractive man in his late teens or early twenties with short, wheat colored hair and striking blue eyes. She shifted nervously, well aware that he was handsome, particularly struck with the image of his chiseled jaw and fit - if somewhat thin – masculine body. Hermione knew better than to judge somebody based upon appearance alone, and she was unsure exactly why the man had interfered in her battle with Bellatrix in the first place. Perhaps he was simply a Good Samaritan, or it could be that he was interested in the reward. It could be the case that he was not actually a Muggle, but rather was posing as one in order to gain her trust for some nefarious purpose. She certainly found it troubling that he may have been silently watching her tend her wounds while she was virtually topless.

"Hi." She began sheepishly; wondering why that was all that she could manage in the way of greeting "Thanks for trying to help me," she finished, acting as if she'd no doubts about his intentions.

"It was nothing," he said, in surprisingly deep voice. She'd expected it to be a bit more… boyish.

"My name is Hermione. Hermione Granger."

"Sandy Hawkins. Do you know what happened?"

Hermione shrugged. "I only woke up a minute ago. How do you feel? Are you injured?" Sandy shook her head and she continued. "Are you experiencing any stiffness of the joints or lingering pain?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"It's one of the side effects of the torture spell she used. You weren't exposed for too long, so it should fade within a day or two. If you start experiencing uncontrollable shaking you need to tell me immediately. This spell can cause catastrophic nerve damage." She glanced about. "I don't suppose you recognize where we are…"

Sandy got to his feet, brushed himself off, and then looked around. "I think we're still in Central Park."

"This isn't where we were," she pointed out, accepting the offered hand. Sandy was surprisingly strong; he showed no sign that helping her to her feet caused him any strain, despite the fact that Hermione was not a particularly slight young woman.

"I think it is," said Sandy, motioning toward something behind her. "It looks like the same bridge that that psychopath used to box you in earlier."

Hermione blinked, as she examined the bridge Sandy had motioned toward. She hadn't gotten a very good look at the bridge which had cut off her escape route, but they did look remarkably similar. "Perhaps, but there was a path and the bushes were cut back." She paused, considering. "Did you see or hear what spell she used? The one that struck mine?"

"It was a light… yellow, maybe," he said, looking nowhere near as confused by her question as Hermione thought he should. "It sounded Swedish or Norwegian. Maybe Russian. W-something."

"Oh, bloody hell," sighed Hermione. There was only one spell that matched that description; a rather nasty Norse spell which had been favored by the Vikings that was so illegal most European Wizarding Enclaves executed anybody caught using it, even if it had not been used on a living being. "It didn't hit you, did it?"

"No, why?"

"That curse doesn't have a counter," Hermione stated simply.

Maybe she shouldn't be quite so open with the man, but it wasn't like it really mattered. The International Statute of Secrecy was not to hide the presence of magic from Muggles, but to hide the various Wizarding enclaves from Muggles and protect the identities of the witches and wizards who belonged to said enclaves. So long as she neither revealed the existence of the enclaves nor explained that she was a Wizarding witch, it didn't matter that Sandy knew she was a trained magic user-so long as he didn't use her to lead him to a Wizarding enclave at least. Though personally Hermione preferred that it not be known by Muggles that she could cast magic.

Absently she _scourgified_ her clothing to get rid of the grass stains and dirt. "Here, let me clean you as well.

"_Scourgify_," she said, pointing her wand at Sandy before he had a chance to object.

He blinked, straightening his clothing. He was dressed in a simple if practical outfit consisting of dark brown canvas rousers and a blue plaid shirt striped with white and brown with the first couple buttons undone, revealing that he wore a simple white t-shirt underneath. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to just bellow the elbow, revealing lightly tanned, well muscled arms.

"Will you be alright? Getting yourself out of the park, I mean."

"Yeah. Why?"

Hermione let out a sigh. "I need to track down LeStrange and make sure she doesn't hurt anybody. Well… anybody else." She also wanted to know what the hell the woman was planning. Because whatever it was couldn't possibly be good.

"Why don't we make sure we're actually in Central Park before we split up," suggested Sandy.

Glancing about, Hermione nodded. "That's probably a good idea."

"This way," he said.

Hermione quickly picked up her backpack, trying not to show how painful the sudden movement was and followed her companion though the forest. She'd forgotten how painful broken ribs were. "So, why _did_ you rescue me? Interfering in a battle between two magic users isn't exactly the smartest thing to do."

Sandy shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was in England a couple months ago-during spring break-and I remember that woman from the wanted posters. She escaped from prison, right?"

"She did," confirmed Hermione. "She's a rather infamous terrorist and serial killer. Uh… look. She probably won't care about you at all. But she also might decide it's a good idea to get revenge for you interfering with her torturing and killing me. So you should probably watch your back for a few months." She cleared her throat. "Or years. LeStrange is a fanatic. There's very little more dangerous than a fanatic."

Sandy was silent for several long minutes before they reached a dirt path. "Here we are. This should lead to the street, eventually."

"Thank you. I'm not sure I'd have found the way out without your help."

Nothing else was said until they reached a paved path which led to a set of stairs. They took the stairs up to the sidewalk. Suddenly, Sandy grabbed Hermione's arm.

"What are you doing?" snapped Hermione, instantly reaching to pinch a rather sensitive set of nerves in this arm. Her father had taught both her and her younger siblings how to defend themselves when it had become apparent that they had inherited his tendency to get into strange situations.

"Look around," he hissed, moving his arm out of her grip with surprisingly gentle ease, then let go of her other wrist.

Hermione gave him a look of confusion, but did as he suggested. "Renaissance fairs are one thing, this is ridiculous. Please tell me they're shooting a film."

"I don't think they are."

"Well hell." Her mind raced, wondering what precisely had happened.

Obviously they were in another time or world, or maybe in some sort of incredibly complex illusion. And the only thing she could think of that would have caused such a thing was as a side effect of two spells colliding. She'd have to do the arithmancy to figure out exactly what had happened, but once that was done she could figure out how to reverse it.

"Alright. New plan. We stick together while I try to figure out exactly what happened," she announced.

"Agreed."

She was suddenly sure that she would have to tell him about the Wizarding, even though it was illegal. He had every right to know what he'd gotten himself involved with. She supposed that meant that she'd have to figure out how to do so without getting herself - or Sandy for that matter - into trouble with the Wizengamont. At least the New Amsterdam Magical Enclave was not entirely Wizarding and - as a result - their laws were less strict than most.

* * *

They sat on the waist-high stone wall surrounding Central Park, reading a newspaper Sandy had paid for with his pocket change. Hermione had muttered something about whether this was time travel or an illusion or an alternate dimension nearly half an hour prior, which was why they were reading the newspaper. Hopefully they'd be able to find something which was the same, or different from what history they remembered.

Sandy had chosen to allow Hermione to take the lead unless they were in a situation where that would be dangerous. It was better than having to answer questions about precisely how he knew so much or revealing what he and his uncle had been. He was retired - for good reason - and had no desire to be neck-deep in this sort of situation.

That was not to say that he'd any intention of abandoning Hermione. The girl couldn't be more than sixteen or seventeen. He wasn't going to abandon some kid just because he wanted nothing to do with this sort of life anymore.

"Alright, so it's nineteen forty-three," said Hermione, her voice pitched so that only Sandy would hear. "Shouldn't you be in the military? I mean, what are you supposed to say; 'I'm seventeen. My father won't let me join until I turn eighteen?' Nobody'll buy that. You don't look seventeen."

"Actually, I'm nineteen-" sixty nine, almost seventy, supplied his mind. "Nobody is going to ask questions like that unless we get arrested," said Sandy as he read an article on fighting in Africa. "Should anybody need to know, which is unlikely, I can say I'm in the Navy and on leave. There are several ships in harbor right now that I can claim to be stationed on."

"Oh."

"So, any idea on how to get us back home?"

"I… I don't know," she sighed. "I mean, I've an idea of how we ended up here, but spell interaction is an iffy thing. It could take me a month to figure out precisely how it happened, and who knows how long to reverse it. Until I can figure it out, I might as well find something useful to do. So I'm going to track down LeStrange and try to make sure she doesn't kill somebody and create an alternate dimension… or something equally horrid."

Sandy gave a sharp nod. "I'm coming with you."

"Uh, look… No offense intended, but I really don't think there's much you can do against someone like LeStrange. The only reason she didn't kill you is because she likes to toy with her prey."

"I understand. But what else am I going to do? Wait here while you risk life and limb to track down a wanted murderer?" He didn't want to do this, but there was no way he was going to send some teenage girl to track down a serial killer alone while he sat back and did nothing.

"You've made your point," she sighed. "Very well. I don't imagine that you know the best way to get to the Lower East Side from here, do you?"

"We just need to catch the subway, but why would you want to go there?"

The girl glanced around nervously, as if checking to see if anybody was around. Absently she brushed back a strand of dark hair which had escaped from her rather large bun. "When we get back, you don't know they exist and I was not the one to tell you," she entreated. "If they were to find out I told you…"

"Of course. I understand completely." He wondered precisely what was going on, but was willing to wait until Hermione was willing to tell him whatever secret this was.

"When New Amsterdam became New York, not all the Dutch left. There's still a rather sizable enclave of magic users who live where New Amsterdam once stood…"

"The Lower East Side," supplied Sandy. He had actually been aware of several sorceresses and mages who had lived there during the forties, but had not known they were part of a larger community.

"You didn't hear this from me. And you'd do well to stay out of there without me as an escort. They don't take to kindly to interlopers."

Sandy nodded his understanding. "So why are we going there?"

"I need supplies for a scrying spell-and for a couple potions. And if nothing else we'll be able to find a place to stay for the night for far less than in the non-magical areas of New York City. Alright, are you married or engaged to anybody?"

"What? No. Why?"

"As a non-magical human you would never be permitted to enter the enclave or most other enclaves for that matter unless you're related to a magical person through blood or marriage. They generally trust people to police themselves, so they won't ask questions unless we do something too suspicious, but we should be prepared just in case. Don't worry, this isn't binding, at all, but I need you to ask me to marry you."

"Why?"

"Because, we both need to be able to honestly say that we're engaged. I'd try to pass you off as family, but if worse comes to worse - and knowing my luck it certainly will - I might need to be able to say that you and I are engaged… even under the influence of truth potions. If I cannot, we will be lucky if all they do is permanently exile us from that enclave. I've heard of incidents where people have been killed for doing less. Being handfasted would be better, but it's not something I'd ask a person I've just met to commit to. A normal engagement should be enough to get you into most of the enclaves on this side of the Pond, although if we were in Europe that would be another matter entirely."

"Handfasting?" echoed Sandy, recognizing the term from his most recent roommate, who was something called a "neo-pagan," whatever that met. Didn't it have something to do with temporarily being married for-what was it-a year and a day?

"Right. I forgot about the differences in cultures. Alright, engagement is considered rather informal, by the standards of most magical communities because of how easy it is to break off and is generally only done when one of the participants has no magical abilities or if they were raised outside of our people. Handfasting, or betrothal, is far more formal because both parties promise to marry in the future, you know; 'plight their troth' to each other during the ceremony. Both parties need to agree in order to get out of a handfasting - though doing so is considered quite scandalous - and if it's either consummated or both parties swear they are married in the present tense… they are officially married. And among my people, marriage is for life. There is no divorce, no annulment. This is why I suggested engagement instead." She looked down. "Sorry. I know I tend to give more information that people want, but you asked."

"It was very interesting," he consoled her. He didn't particularly feel comfortable doing this, but there was little other alternative-judging by her explanation at least. Unfortunately, it was in keeping with what he remembered from the conversations of Kent Nelson, Shierra Hall and John Zatara. "I need to ask you to marry me, right? Isn't there any option other than those?"

"You need to be related to one of us through blood or marriage, so either we get engaged, or you get me pregnant. Since I have no intention of getting pregnant, this leaves only the promise of marriage."

"Oh. I see. Well… Hermione, would you marry me?"

"Yes, I will. And if anybody asks, my name is Hermione Knight, not Granger. What's your mother's maiden name? You can't use Hawkins."

"Belmont," he supplied, understanding precisely why she thought the use of their real names a bad idea.

She was either very smart or she had quite a bit of experience with this sort of thing. Perhaps both were true. Although he had to admit he was a little surprised at how old-fashioned the magical communities she described were. And then he reminded himself that he couldn't judge them by what he believed to be normal standards. He could think of plenty of magical communities more uptight than what Hermione was describing.

"Well, lead the way," said Hermione. "Oh! That reminds me… if asked, in the wake of the Blitz in London - where I actually do live - I was sent to stay with my mother's family in Maryland."

* * *

She took control the moment they'd gotten off the bus (some two blocks from their destination) confidently leading him down the street. Now that he had some idea of what to look for, Sandy found evidence of the purported magical enclave rather easily. It was in how occasionally a girl or woman walked by dressed in clothing that might have mistaken for the garb of Hasidic Jews were it not for the fact that it was even more conservative. In fact, now that he was paying attention, it was almost medieval in its backwardness. One woman he was staring at acknowledged Hermione with a nod or a glance and she did the same. He was also noticing the way the ubiquitous pickpockets were so very careful not to so much as look in their direction, let alone consider stealing from them. He was not actually all that surprised. It was rather smart to hide in plain sight as they were doing. Most people probably mistook them for a religious group or new immigrants who had not assimilated yet.

Hermione took Sandy's hand in her own and led him into a tavern he had not even noticed was there. He blinked, fighting the urge to shake his head. He realized that he had not noticed that the tavern was there because it had been hidden from him - and most likely other "non-magical" humans - by magic.

She nodded in the general direction of the barkeep and led Sandy past several groups of people having lunch. They went out the back of the tavern and down a rather nasty alley. As it turned out, the alley was not truly as decrepit as it appeared. All the dirt and garbage was carefully placed window dressing.

"Here we are," she announced, taking his hand once more. "Come this way. Try not to gape like an idiot. We do not need the attention that would draw."

With that she turned and walked into a space between two buildings that he hadn't even realized was there. It was like stepping back in time to a village from the 16th century. Scattered about were women dressed in clothing as modern as Hermione's, but most wore dresses which looked like they had been popular five or six centuries prior. Likewise, many of the men wore robes or trousers and tunics. He actually caught sight of several men dressed in tights. Nobody he saw was dressed appropriately for any point in the 1940s.

First they entered a bank where Hermione exchanged a gold coin and two silver coins, all of unfamiliar make for roughly five hundred dollars. When she'd brought out the coins, he'd noted that she had at least twenty more of these gold coins. He gave no indication that he had noticed this, however.

They proceeded to visit an apothecary, where Hermione seemed intent on buying her weight in ingredients and tools, including an actual cauldron and an odd knife Hermione called an athame. From there, they went to a tavern and inn where Hermione rented a room with an "attached potions lab" for a night.

Hermione had quickly ensconced herself in the potions lab where she began to make something, apparently from memory.

"What are you making?" asked Sandy, seating himself on a stool several feet away.

"The first thing I'm making is used to treat c_ruciatus_ exposure. The _Cruciatus_ Curse was what LeStrange hit us with. This potion should help reduce any ill effects from the curse both in the long term and the short term. After that, I'm going to make some other potions and while they're brewing I'll scry for LeStrange. You still have that map, correct?"

Sandy nodded. He'd bought a simple world map before they'd gotten on the subway at Hermione's urging. "Hey, uh, how old are you anyway?"

"Sixteen. I'll be seventeen in September."

"Are your parents going to worry about your absence?"

"Perhaps, but I tend to get into strange situations so they're fairly used to it. They'll be more upset that haven't taken the time to send them a message to at least let them know I'm alive. But this wouldn't be the first time I'd disappeared for a couple days or weeks."

"And they don't have a problem with you doing that?"

"It's more that they trust me to be able to take care of myself. After the first time I got into a… strange situation, Mom and Dad decided that I wasn't allowed to do this sort of thing unless I knew how to fight. Dad taught me to protect myself. I'm not as good as Dad is, but I'm capable. What about you? Don't bother denying it, I remember enough of your fight with LeStrange to see that you know what you're doing."

"My uncle and some of his friends taught me how to fight when I was younger," he explained. It was technically the truth, though quite a bit had been left out. "Like your parents, my aunt and uncle wanted me to know how to protect myself."

Hermione stirred the cauldron, and then checked her watch before moving to sit down next to him. "So, are you going to get fired from your job if you don't show up on Monday?"

"I don't have a job right now. I've been putting off finding one until after I finish college."

"Which university do you attend?"

"Columbia University. I just finished my sophomore year."

"Wow. What's your field of study?"

"I'm currently studying both chemistry and pharmacology."

She let out a whistle. "Impressive."

"You're still in secondary, right?"

"Yes and no. I finished secondary a while ago." She looked down. "The deal was that I could attend any school I wanted once I took my A-Levels."

"That seems a sensible rule," agreed Sandy. From what he remembered, those were the tests universities in the UK looked at when deciding which students to admit. How long ago had she finished high school? Obviously at least a year prior, which suggested she was an intelligent person. "Are you currently enrolled in a university?"

Hermione shook her head. "I wasn't really all that interested back then-magic seemed a thousand times more interesting. I chose to go to a school of magic instead. These days? I'm too busy to bother. It's just not important enough."

"When did you take you're A-Levels?" he asked.

He could understand that she had different goals that didn't really match up with what was expected of people in the 1990s. Maybe it was because he'd grown up in a time when only the well off or truly intelligent went to college, when most employers couldn't base their employment decisions solely on whether or not somebody had a degree, but he understood.

"Shortly before I turned twelve," she admitted. "Mom didn't think I could pass, but I did." Hermione checked her watch, and then carefully poured out two ounces of the potion into a two separate cups. "Bottoms up, lad." She said coyly "We'll need to take a dose per day for the next week."

Sandy waited until Hermione drank it before doing so himself. Then he made a face at the taste of it, suddenly understanding the irony in her tone. It had been greatly unpleasant, tasting of wood smoke and dishwater, but Sandy supposed that was to be expected from a magical potion. The rest was poured into a canteen like holder. Almost immediately, the aches and general discomfort seemingly caused by being hit by that curse seemed to fade. There was still some stiffness, some twinges of pain, but they were far less than they had been.

Hermione handed him a scrub brush and a bar of soap. "Could you wash out the cauldron while I scry for LeStrange?"

"Sure."

She set out the map and took out the athame. After a moments thought, she handed a five dollar bill to Sandy. "Actually, can you go downstairs and pick up a bottle of hard liquor? Fire whiskey would be your best bet."

"What for?"

"It's probably the best disinfectant to be found in the enclave. Modern medicine isn't exactly a big thing around here."

"Why do you need a disinfectant?"

"Scrying spells like the one I intend to try often ask for blood sacrifice. In this case it will require a little less than a quarter of a pint of my own."

"Blood?" Sandy searched his mind, trying to think of any occasion where he'd seen blood used in a spell that was not meant for a dark purpose. "Isn't that a bit…"

"Though it's technically classified as a dark spell by the enclave I come from, it is in fact neither light nor dark so long as I use either my own blood or blood freely given. Unfortunately, this is necessary given that the more legal methods are ones LeStrange can and probably has protected herself from. Which leaves the spells you can't hide yourself from with cold iron or salt or heavy wards."

* * *

Hermione looked up when Sandy walked back in, a bemused expression upon his face and a bottle of fire whiskey in his hands. "It's actually called fire whiskey."

She snorted. "Yes. The strength is something like twice that of normal whiskey."

"What?"

"In all fairness, most enclaves consider you old enough to drink if you can see over the top of the bar counter. Most of us build up a pretty good alcohol tolerance by the time we're sixteen or seventeen."

Sandy handed her the bottle and Hermione opened it. She spilled it on the athame in the sink and then proceeded to wipe it dry. She'd already washed it with soap and water, but better to be safe than sorry. Then she wet a handkerchief with the whiskey and wiped down the inside of her dominant arm. Holding her breath, she carefully cut into her arm, allowing blood to fall into a wooden bowl until the blood reached the rim.

"That all the blood you need?"

A short nod was the only response he received.

Before Hermione had an opportunity to stem the bleeding, Sandy grabbed her and pulled her over to the sink. Holding her arm over it, he poured some whiskey over the wound. Then he pulled out a handkerchief and carefully wrapped it around her arm twice and tied it off.

"It's not deep enough to need stitches."

"Thank you," muttered Hermione.

"So what happens now?"

"Sit back and watch."

Instead Sandy picked up the cauldron and soap, and went to clean it as Hermione had originally requested.

Using a small paint brush-normally she made rune arrays out of ink using this brush and it wasn't really the proper one to use with blood, but it was the only one she had on her-Hermione began to write upon the wood around the map in her blood. The rune array was not that hard, but rather intricate. While Sandy had been out buying whiskey, Hermione had done the arithmancy-it was the mathematics of magic-to figure out what runes to use to represent Bellatrix LeStrange's name. When all but a few drops of blood were used, Hermione gathered her magic as Professor Babbling, her Ancient Runes teacher had taught, and spoke the appropriate words in an ancient form of Greek.

And then her knees went weak. As she collapsed, Sandy caught her, saving her from landing upon the floor.

"Ow," she muttered, allowing him to pull her back to her feet. "There should be a glowing dot. Where is it?"

"Leipzig."

"Germany?"

"Yeah."

"This is not going to end well," she sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"Let's go sit down in the other room. This might take a while."

When Hermione was not quite able to stand on her own, Sandy just picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He put her on the bed and sat himself down in an armchair.

"So, what's going on?"

"Alright, I'm sure you know about World War II. What you probably don't know is that from 1932 to 1946, there was a rather nasty war between various magical enclaves going on in Europe as well. Luckily it was just in Europe, not in the rest of the world, but it was rather bad."

"So what is LeStrange doing in Germany?"

"I don't know. Maybe she's just causing chaos. Maybe she's looking to serve a rather nasty dark wizard called Grindelwald or one of his equally contemptible if less infamous contemporaries. Or perhaps she's going to kill some of her master's enemies before they become a threat. Who knows? For all I know, she might intend to collect some objects of power before they disappeared in the wake of the war. I don't want to think about how many cursed or charmed objects went missing during that time. Or how many people died. She could easily kill thousands of people and frame Grindelwald's forces." Hermione paused, looking Sandy in the eye. "This just became a thousand times more dangerous. Not only will we have to deal with magical authorities, but non-magical ones as well. If you want to back out, wait in New York until I'm done, I'll understand completely."

"No. I'm going with you."

"Alright, but you need to know that this is going to be incredibly dangerous and it's more than a little stupid to follow LeStrange there, but I don't really see any other choice."

"So what's the plan?"

She had the feeling that Sandy had not so much dismissed her warnings as decided that he didn't care about the danger. He'd probably fit right in with her fellow Gryffindors.

Hermione let out a breath. "We outfit ourselves today and tonight I make any potion we might need. We need to buy an international newspaper or two to familiarize ourselves with what's going on in Europe. We only did an overview of the war with Grindelwald in class. We don't study it in any depth until the tail end of seventh year. Tomorrow we sneak into Europe through Portugal. That would be our best bet to get in without notice."

"Why Portugal?"

"Because they stayed the hell out of the war, as did Spain. However, the enclave in Spain is currently embroiled in a civil war. Their guard is up, but they've got enough of a buffer from the actual fighting that their protections won't be the best. And the Spanish should be too busy dealing with what's going on within their borders to worry about us sneaking through. Hopefully, we'll be able to slip through the wards and the field thrown out by the magical objects and wards Grindelwald used to keep the rest of the world out of the war. From what I understand he'd intended to conquer Europe and consolidate his power before moving on to the rest of the world. Then there's the Spear of Destiny. We need to keep it clear in our minds that we only care about stopping LeStrange or it could affect us."

"You know that Hitler is using the Spear of Destiny?" said Sandy, seemingly shocked.

"Of course. Grindelwald arranged for it to fall into Hitler's hands. From what we understand, he intended it to be a distraction that would ensure the Muggles were too busy dealing with the Third Reich to care about what the magical communities were doing. You know about it as well?"

"Yes, I do. What does Muggle mean in the way you used it?"

"It's a Wizarding colloquialism for non-magicals."

He went incredibly still, a faraway look upon his face. Then he gave her a hard look, one Professor McGonagal would have been proud of. "That's not a particularly kind term."

Hermione felt blood rush to her cheeks in shame. "I didn't think. I'm sorry." He was right. Had she ever thought about how degrading referring to somebody as a Muggle was before? It was no different from calling somebody a Mudblood.

"Are we going to have to go into one of those European enclaves?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. There's a good chance that we might get caught in Portugal or while passing through Spain and France. Or we might need to get through some of the check points meant for witches and wizards. Why?"

"What will they do to us if you bring me along-even though we're 'engaged'?"

"If I am lucky they will erase our memories, which would be disastrous. And that's in Italy and Ireland, both of which are more liberal. The others… I'll be tried for treason. You… who knows? Execution is very likely in that event. The laws tend to be rather draconian."

"Isn't being engaged enough for them?"

"No, it's not. It's generally thought that a normal human cannot be trusted with knowledge of our enclaves unless they're related through marriage or blood, as I said earlier today. Most of them are still upset that some of our kind use magic openly. Revealing our communities is a crime worse than murder as far as they're concerned."

"Can't handfasting be broken? Why do they allow that?"

"Firstly, almost all non-magicals don't use the practice anymore. Secondly, as far as my people are concerned, it might as well be marriage because the only acceptable way out is betrayal, or disabling injury because any other reason for ending it is dishonorable in the extreme. Among my kind, a person is only considered as good as their word. If your word is worth nothing - say you break an oath - you are worth nothing."

"Is it common for somebody your age to be… betrothed?"

"Oh yes. There are about forty students in my year. Of them…" she mentally counted, "nine of the girls are handfasted as are seven of the boys. That I know of. The other twelve girls are either searching rather actively for a husband or planning to forgo a husband in favor of a career - although many of the married women do work. In the forties, since it's the middle of a war, most of the girls my age are probably hand fasted or actually married by this age. Traditionally, a girl becomes betrothed somewhere between the age of fourteen and eighteen and then they marry between seventeen and twenty or so. The boys tend to get married once they've finished an apprenticeship or gotten a steady job."

"And you?"

"Me?"

"Are you engaged or betrothed?"

"No, I'm not." Hermione let out a sigh, mentally composing what to say and what to leave out. "The British enclave is in the middle of a civil war. Unlike most of my classmates, I'm more interested in keeping myself and my friends alive than I am in finding a husband. I've dated before, but that was back before we were once more openly at war."

"What is this civil war about?"

Hermione shook her head. "It's a long story. Let's just leave it at prejudice and megalomaniacal dark wizards for now. If we survive this, I'll tell you all about it."

Sandy nodded. "So, we need to get handfasted before we even enter Portugal, right?"

"What? Why?"

"Didn't you say we might be caught at any time? Wouldn't it be better to be handfasted before we enter the country so that if we're caught by magical customs or whatever they call themselves they can't use that against us?"

"Oh. Yes. You're right." She hadn't even thought of that possibility.

"So what does somebody have to do to get betrothed?"

"We just need to say an oath to each other. We don't need any witnesses-magic can be used to show whether or not somebody is betrothed or married. But we will need to see if this enclave has a priest or priestess. We might as well get this over with, then take care of finding the supplies we'll need. Christianity isn't exactly something most people around here like. Most witches and wizards still practice pagan religions that their people have been practicing for millennia."

"Are you able to walk?"

Hermione nodded as she carefully maneuvered herself to her feet. "The scrying spell just took a lot of magic out of me."

After Hermione locked and warded their rooms, they headed downstairs to the tavern. They approached the innkeeper, who Hermione asked, "Excuse me sir, do you know if there is a holy person nearby?"

"We have a priestess dedicated to the goddess Selene, a druid, a priest dedicated to the god Dagon, a rabbi, and some Christian priest-roman catholic, I think."

"One second please, I hadn't realized there would be so many here," explained Hermione. She walked a couple feet away, pulling Sandy with her. She cast a privacy charm. Keeping her voice low, she explained, "The rabbi, the druid, or the catholic priest would be our best bet. The other two would require far more of us than the fee for sealing the oath."

"Alright. I've never been particularly religious and it just needs to get into and out of there safely," agreed Sandy, his voice so low she could barely hear it. "What would you suggest?"

She looked down, thinking. After a long moment, she said, "The druid. The catholic priest and the rabbi would require actual marriage contracts that we would have to jump through hoops to get out of. The druid would only require an oath. And though they're technically priests, they're far less strict than their counterparts in most other religions."

"How do you know so much about the subject?" he seemed to be a bit suspicious.

She looked down. It was a story she hadn't told even Ron and Harry, but she had a feeling that this was something she could not gloss over at this time, especially not if she wanted to keep his trust. "About a year ago, my boyfriend at the time, Viktor Krum asked me to marry him. I was a bit shocked-I was fifteen, I had no idea that it was normal to marry so young-so I told him that I had to speak to my parents before I could say yes or no to his proposal. So I researched Wizarding marriage laws and looked through the marriage contract he wanted me to sign. I don't think he understood that I might want to do something with more with my life than be a housewife and have half a dozen kids. The most frightening part was learning that his family's traditional marriage contract was incredibly liberal by Wizarding standards. I mean, I could have added clauses or negotiated some of the terms, but even so… Anyway, I told Viktor that I couldn't marry him because my parents were thinking of betrothing me to the child of a family friend. It was better than telling him the truth. At least this way we're still friends.

"In my research, I found that any priest or priestess will have a standard marriage contract unique to their religion or god which contains nonnegotiable terms in keeping with their beliefs. Families generally add clauses to these contracts, but unless you get married by a non-magical authority or by a judge, you cannot write your own contract. But to do that, you'd have to get married right then and there, instead of just betrothed. The catholic and Jewish marriage contracts are the most liberal. But you need to get an annulment or a divorce to get out of them. However, if you happen to go to a druid or Buddhist monk, you only need to give your oath. Neither group cares one bit about marriage contracts. They view that as something for families to settle on their own."

"Alright, let's get directions to the druid." He paused. "Are we talking about a real druid or…"

"Indeed a real druid. Despite what the history books say, the Romans did not actually wipe out the druids." Hermione released the charm and walked back over to the innkeeper. "We talked it over and decided that we would like directions to the druid, if you would be so kind."

* * *

He didn't like this. He didn't like that he was about to swear an oath to marry some girl he'd met earlier in the day or that they were only doing this to get around the law and had no intention of actually following through. He had not been raised like that. And he sure as hell didn't like doing anything involving the Wizarding. But it was like being undercover, he'd decided.

However Sandy was good enough at reading people to know when Hermione was telling the truth, or leaving something out. He judged she was telling the truth about this. It would have been so much easier to just put on his old uniform and go in as Sandy the Golden Boy, but that part of his life was behind him. Although he had to ask himself if he ever would have found these magical enclaves - Wizarding enclaves - existed if he'd been Sandy the Golden Boy. Or would these people have hidden themselves from him?

He knew about the Wizarding only by chance. Back in 1945, there were a series of rapes and murders. They'd eventually tracked down the killer, a "wizard of the Wizarding variety," according to the sorceress who had rescued them. They'd nearly died trying to bring that man in, and for their trouble, they'd barely escaped having their memories erased by the Wizarding, who were "grateful" for their help, but unwilling to allow an outsider to retain knowledge of their existence. It was the same sorceress who'd rescued them who only pretended to erase their memory of the incident in thanks for their service.

The worst part of the incident had not been when the wizard had taken over his mind using something called the "_Imperius_ Curse" or even the knowledge that if he had not broken free the wizard would have forced him to commit unthinkable crimes. It was the fact that the wizard's fellow magic users had done nothing to stop him because he'd been going after normal human women, not witches.

Almost all the magical societies he could think of, save possibly the Amazons were so secretive that if he'd not been the Sandman's sidekick, he never would have known of their existence. And those magic users he knew on a personal level had rarely if ever said outright that there were even more secretive magical societies, though they obviously had to know of their existence. They'd implied it often enough with what they didn't say and little things here and there that they let slip. From what he understood, at least according to John Zatara, who'd he'd spoken to after the incident with the wizard, the Wizarding were the most unified and organized of magical peoples, and positively militant in the protection of their secrets.

He knew Hermione was not telling him everything. When he asked, she'd explain, but never tell him more than he absolutely had to know to understand the situation. He wasn't even sure why she was telling him so much. He'd actually thought that she would deny knowing about magic, deny being capable of magic, even though he'd seen her use spells. He'd been perfectly willing to allow her to do so, uncontested. At least until it became apparent that they were fifty years in the past. But it had never come to that. Hermione was by far one of the most open magic users he'd ever met. Although he supposed it was probably because of the situation they now found themselves in.

They found the druid in a small temple between the market and the residential area. The man was clad in a gray robe and loosely woven sandals, his graying hair was in a dozen or so braids with wooden beads and carvings secured to them. He'd greeted them enthusiastically and offered tea, which Hermione had accepted for them both.

Finally, after all the pleasantries were done with, the man asked, "What can I do for you, my children?"

"Sandy and I are in something of a bind," explained Hermione. "My family is almost entirely non-magical, as you can no doubt tell. Sandy is non magical as well. As far as they're concerned, being engaged is more than enough, but he intends to enlist in the army soon, which would not be a problem, save for the fact that he is aware of the Wizarding." She gave him a pleading look. "I just felt that it would be wrong to agree to marry somebody unless they knew what I was, what my children will be. If he goes to fight in Europe… I'm terrified of what the British or the Russians or the French would do to him for knowing. And if the Dark Lord's forces were to find out…" She sniffled, leaving Sandy rather impressed that she was able to call up tears on command, despite the fact that she was not a particularly skilled liar.

"Shh, it is alright," said the druid, handing Hermione a handkerchief, which she used to dab at her eyes.

"My parents are quite insistent that I take my NEWTs before Sandy and I can marry, but I thought… I thought that if we were to be handfasted, it would help to protect him while he's off fighting."

Ten minutes later, Sandy and Hermione were officially betrothed. The druid had been very sympathetic to their "plight" and more than willing to preside over their ceremony, despite the fact that neither of them had their families there, something that was apparently standard.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

Carefully, Sandy organized the supplies they'd bought on the way back to the inn. Then he split the supplies appropriately and handed half of them to Hermione, who put them away in her backpack.

He'd taken over that task without a second thought, despite his original desire to let Hermione take the lead. The mention of the Wizarding had destroyed any intention he had to passively permit Hermione to be in control of tracking down this woman and bringing them back to their own time. Maybe the Wizarding had some reason they thought justified erasing innocent people's memories, that justified ignoring crimes against normal humans, but Sandy found the practice reprehensible.

Hermione was on the other side of the bed, carefully organizing the various potions she'd made. Sandy had found that unless Hermione thought she knew something better than he did, she was more than willing to allow him to take command. It had surprised him, considering how she'd been acting earlier. It led Sandy to believe that while capable of leading, Hermione was not used to being in such a position. Likely, some or most of her friends and family were the take charge types.

Part of Sandy could not help but regret that he'd no gas gun or wirepoon to take with him.(1) He'd done what he could to arm himself when he and Hermione had left the enclave to find clothing more appropriate for the time period. Hermione had given him implicit approval by requesting that he pick her up a good knife-not that he would have allowed her disapproval to stop him, he'd have just found what was needed surreptitiously.

"I'm ready," announced Hermione, tucking the potions into her backpack, which had been "transfigured" to look more appropriate. She picked up a coat. "What do you think? This looks, normal, right?"

"You look fine," agreed Sandy. "Don't forget your hat."

"Right. I knew I'd forgotten something."

Hermione was dressed rather conservatively in a soft, gray-blue blouse buttoned to the neck under a mid calf length a-line forest green wool skirt. She wore thick black stockings, despite the summer heat, and sensible boots. Her hip length curly hair-Sandy had been more than a little surprised to learn how long it was, women just didn't keep their hair long like that anymore-was loosely braided and wrapped around her head like a crown. Carefully, she pinned the matching green hat to her head, slightly to one side. Hermione folded the matching hip length coat and put it in the backpack.

Likewise, Sandy was dressed in durable dark gray trousers, a green button up shirt, a gray and blue and green patterned tie, and a matching gray vest and jacket. The clothing had been chosen specifically because while a bit too new, it would not stand out too much in either a city or a town. It also would not reflect much light, should they need to hide.

"I'm ready as well," announced Sandy, putting on the backpack he'd bought the night before. "Let's get going."

Hermione held out a piece of parchment with odd, scrolling alphabet written in ink. It was some sort of spell, something Hermione had called a portkey, and supposedly it was able to take them across the Atlantic. Gently Sandy took a corner of the parchment. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to travel halfway across the world in a heartbeat. The idea was both unsettling and reassuring.

"Hold on. Keep your legs loose otherwise you'll fall," she explained. "And try not to throw up when we land." And then she said something which sounded vaguely Germanic.

It felt as though something grabbed him, hooked him by his navel. Then he was being thrown-or maybe it was dragged-into the air as he and Hermione spun around dizzyingly. A moment later they were falling. And then they fell to the ground. Only Hermione's advice to keep his legs loose kept him from stumbling to the ground. It had been too long since he'd been teleported anywhere, he'd forgotten how hard some landings could be.

"You in one piece? Do you have everything?" asked Hermione as she brushed out her skirt.

"I'm fine. You?"

"I'm good. Keep watch while I get everything together."

Sandy looked around, noting that they were in a farmer's field, at the edge of a town. Luckily they were almost completely hidden by the crops.

"Put this on," ordered Hermione, handing Sandy a wooden pendant on a leather strap he'd seen her carving the night before. She put a second pendant around her neck once he held the pendant she'd offered. "I only activated the translation charms and the notice-me-nots. You need to be careful with the translation charms if more than one language is being spoken, because it will be translated for both and people will definitely know something is wrong. The notice-me-not does as the name suggests and keeps anybody from noticing, so long as you don't do anything too outrageous like try to get their attention or touch somebody."

Hermione looked around. "There should be a train station in town. We can probably sneak onto a train heading east."

"Can all you uh… Wizarding, was it… do things like this?" asked Sandy as he started to lead her to a dirt toad.

Hermione shrugged. "Some. Most of the time we just apply the spell directly, rather than using rune arrays. I mean it's quicker to do it that way, but it doesn't really last much more than an hour or two and you can't… tweak it so that it does anything more specific, like allowing us to still see and speak to each other. It's why I made the portkey with a rune array instead of a normal spell as well. You have to alter the spell a lot to get into a country without drawing too much attention-and it's far safer to do that alteration with runes than with an actual spell."

"Ah."

* * *

It was at the border between Portugal and Spain that they began to run into problems. Sandy was the first to notice the men in suits that seemed to be searching each vehicle for something. The duo was seated in the back of a bus, still under the protection of the pendants Hermione had made.

At his tap, Hermione looked up from her notebook-she'd spent much of the trip trying to work out the arithmantic equations of the spells which had sent them back in time. It would have been a thousand times easier to write up the equations if she'd been in her own time-at least then she'd have references to use. She'd almost finished writing out the spell equations. Once that was done, she could calculate the spell interaction, then she would be able to figure out how to reverse the effects.

For one long moment, Hermione felt incredibly cold and slightly dizzy, then her cheeks burned. The gravity of the situation hit her quite suddenly. "Nimue's girdle. Those are Hitwizards-uh, Wizarding military," she explained. "Spanish, judging by the uniform. We can't let them catch us."

"Follow me," ordered Sandy, thankfully not asking the reason for Hermione's alarm.

Hermione slid out of the seat so that Sandy could get out. A moment later he knelt on the ground and fiddled around with a panel, eventually opening it.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Getting us out of here."

"Can't we just go out the back?"

"That's too obvious." Sandy glanced up and out the front window. He held out his hand in a motion that almost universally meant wait. The bus rolled forward several yards then stopped, as a vehicle was let through the border. "Go down there, go to the right, keep low. I'll be right behind you."

Hermione gave him a long hard look, then decided to trust him. "Alright."

With his help she slid through the access panel and down to the ground. It was difficult to edge out from under the bus-she was terrified the bus would star moving and she'd get run over-but Hermione eventually managed. She started at the feel of a hand upon her shoulder, then relaxed when she realized it was Sandy.

Sandy led her off the side of the road, through a field and into the forest. He was far, far more surefooted than her and more times than Hermione cared to count Sandy stopped her before she would have made some noise or caught her before she would have tripped. Roughly half an hour after they snuck off the bus, they came to stop.

"Were they looking for us?" demanded Sandy.

"Probably. I knew it was a possibility that they would notice the magic from the portkey, but they don't know exactly where we are; because if they did they would have found us a long time ago. This might be standard procedure, I'm not sure. Or they might be searching for somebody other than us."

"So what would you suggest?"

"We need to go through one of the designated crossings, otherwise their wards will pick up on us. But the problem is they might pick up on the magic in our pendants. It's not like we have actual paperwork. We can't get through the crossing without magic and proper papers."

"Do you speak Portuguese or Spanish or French?"

"I was conversational in French a couple years ago, but I haven't really had a reason to speak the language in more than a year. My Russian and German are better."

"What languages do you know?" asked Sandy, a pensive look upon his face.

"I'm a little more than conversational, a little less than fluent in Russian, Italian, and Bulgarian-Viktor was from Bulgaria. I'm fluent in Old English, German, Latin, and Ancient Greek. Why?"

"I'm fluent in French. If we practice it enough between now and tomorrow or the day after, do you think you could pick up enough French to pass yourself off as a French woman by then?"

"Maybe, but that would involve full immersion in the language, why?"

"We have two options: one, we try to sneak across the border anyway-I can get us across-or two, we find a good forger and get the papers we need. We try to sneak through in pain sight. We pretend you have no magic."

She bit her lip. "There were… there are some countries that put up wards which monitored their borders, told them when a magical human crossed a border in any place other than an appointed crossing during the war with Grindewald. Spain was one of those countries. Getting those forgeries and bluffing our way across is our only option."

Sandy nodded his understanding. Hermione reached over and touched first his pendent then her own. "There, they're off. Tell me if you want me to turn them back on."

Maybe Hermione should have been surprised, or worried about whether or not Sandy would actually have been capable of getting forgeries. Perhaps more worrying was that Hermione actually believed him capable of finding a forger and getting what they needed. Rather, she merely considered this a new aspect of the man she was coming to know. It had never even crossed her mind that a man who could so easily pick up an obviously illegal handgun or two, a man who had reacted to magical battles and time travel and hidden magical societies so calmly was anything out of the ordinary. Part of that was doubtless a result of attending Hogwarts, where the strange was par for the course. And part of it was simply the way she had been raised, with a father who got himself into and out of "interesting situations" on a monthly basis, all while presenting himself to the rest of the world as a somewhat boring oral surgeon. Rather it was the ordinary people who were strange to Hermione. It was probably why she dealt with Harry and his adventures half as well as she did.

"Why didn't you want to get caught by the Spanish?" asked Sandy.

"At this point in time, they wouldn't even bother with a sham trial. They would likely interrogate us using a combination of truth potions and torture, then either release us or execute us, depending upon how they like our answers. It's not like they care at all about human rights and it will be fifteen years before the UN manages to ensure the Wizarding enclaves adhere to the Geneva Convention."

He was silent for several long moments as he seemed to take in what she'd said. "Come on," Sandy said in French. "Let's head in to town. How are you planning on getting into France, by the way?"

"I'd have to see what the security is like. They probably care more about wizards getting through the crossings-spies or reinforcements-so we may need to sneak across the border."

"If that's the case, the opposite may be true," pointed out Sandy. "LeStrange is still in Germany, right?"

Hermione pulled out the map-it showed LeStrange's position in real time. "She's moved a little south and a little east of Leipzig, but she's still in Germany."

"Good. Have you read any books recently?"

"Anna Karenina-in the original Russian-and the Iliad in the original Greek." She blushed. "I know, I'm a bit of a bookworm."

"I've read the Iliad and the Odyssey more recently," he said. "How do you feel about Helen?"

Her eyes widened as she caught on to what Sandy was doing-trying to give her a chance to practice her French. "Well, that depends upon what school of thought you ascribe to. There are versions of the story where she left with Paris willingly, and versions where Paris kidnapped her. Personally, I think you have to ask, would she have willingly left her children, and if so why?"

"Of course. Is Menelaus some monster Helen felt she'd no choice but to escape-leaving even her children behind, or is she so selfish, so uncaring a woman that she didn't care that her actions could well start a war…"

* * *

Absently, Hermione knitted the beginnings of a sweater-well, the right sleeve, as it was easier for her to settle on the pattern of the cables on the small scale. It was rather nice to have something to do when she couldn't work on the arithmantic equations. They were in a small, family tavern where Sandy was trying to get information.

Hermione was playing the part of the good little woman and pretending to be absorbed in her needle work. It was her cousin who had taught her to knit, and given her some invaluable advice: nine times out of ten, if a man thought a woman involved with needlework, he thought her blind, deaf, and dumb, no matter how many times she showed herself capable of multitasking. It was something her fellow Gryffindors had proven time and again. Sandy on the other hand seemed to be one of those rare men who were not fooled so easily. Luckily the men in the tavern seemed to be more in line with her fellow lions.

She nursed a beer, surreptitiously keeping an eye out for any of her fellow magic users-or anybody who might be remotely associated with the military or law enforcement. Sandy had tasked her with the job of acting as lookout while he spoke with some rather shady-and not so shady-looking characters, in search of a forger.

At Sandy's motion, Hermione gathered her knitting supplies and stood. Ever the gentleman, Sandy led her out of the tavern, holding the door open for her.

"I found what we need," explained Sandy. "I'm going to leave you at the hotel while I get it. When I come back, we'll get something to eat."

"But-"

"You are going to stay there. I know you're capable of taking care of yourself, but the people I'm meeting with are not the sort who care about women's rights or the law, at all." Seeming to think she needed clarification, Sandy continued, "As far as they're concerned women have only two uses: in the bedroom or bearing children."

"Alright," sighed Hermione.

"What will probably happen is that I commission them to make our papers, leave and come back in a couple hours or the next day to pick them up. What I want you to do is stay in the hotel's common room and keep on knitting, with your translation charm on. I don't know, find a female guest or two to talk to. If anybody comes looking for you, you need to get out of the building and meet me at the southern edge of town, just inside the forest. I don't care about our supplies; we can always pick them up when it's safe or buy new things."

"Ok," said Hermione, immensely grateful that she'd thought to keep the potion supplies on her.

For half a second Hermione had thought about telling Sandy that she probably knew far more than he did about how to act around men like the ones he'd described. Then she scolded herself. The Wizarding might be a century or two behind the times, but there had never been any need for women to fight for their rights. Under the eyes of the law, witches had always had the same, if not more rights than wizard in the various enclaves. Far better than most non-magical men, the Wizarding understood how powerful and dangerous women could be-magic was the great equalizer, after all. But that said, culturally, they were very different from their non-magical counterparts. Most witches viewed it as the natural order of life for them to marry young and have at least one child, though generally more like three to ten. The truly ambitious women found jobs in addition to having a family, but most were content to be housewives, safe with the knowledge that every witch and wizard knew; a man's most important duty might be to protect and provide for his family, but women, as the bearers of life and keepers of hearth and home were far more important.

It felt natural to allow Sandy to take control of the situation, to allow him to keep her safe, even though she knew on an intellectual level that it should be the other way around. Although perhaps that was the arrogance of most magic users showing through, Hermione supposed as she settled in to an arm chair which was conveniently close to the kitchen should she need to make a quick exit.

It was impossible for every normal man to be as incompetent as the Wizarding-particularly the British-seemed to portray them. Hadn't she been absolutely horrified by that comic about a bumbling Muggle man Ron so enjoyed? Hadn't she found the Muggle Studies classes to be full of incorrect information and hurtful stereotypes? Her own father, absolutely normal human though he was, was far more competent and dangerous than most wizards she could think of. He'd singlehandedly taken on several wizards who had intended to kill her because she was Muggle-born when she was five and had managed to come out on top. Only a third of the Death Eaters who'd kidnapped her had managed to get out alive. Not to mention all those superheroes running around-although Hermione was relatively sure most, if not all, of them had powers or some other advantage most humans didn't.

Alright, so not all non-magicals were incapable of dealing with this sort of thing. However they had to be highly competent and intelligent. Interfering in her battle with LeStrange the way Sandy had didn't say much for his intelligence, but she was grateful for his actions. If not for that, LeStrange likely would have killed her. And it was obvious that he was a skilled fighter. Probably not as skilled as her father, but it was hard to tell based upon what little she'd seen.

With a sigh she slid several stitches off the needle and onto a cable needle. Maybe making the cable pattern on the sweater so involved was not the smartest idea, but she needed something to do with her hands, something to keep her mind off of the worry about precisely what LeStrange was doing right now.

She could have caught up to LeStrange quite quickly if not for three reasons. Unlike LeStrange, she actually cared whether or not she drew attention to herself. She actually cared about the law, although she generally thought of it more as a guideline. And she was taking Sandy with her, which made things far more difficult.

When Sandy walked into the inn, she breathed a sigh of relief. He merely loosened his tie and sat down in a chair next to her own. There was something about his expression, the way he held himself which kept Hermione from asking questions.

Finally, Sandy broke the silence, explaining, "Our papers will be done around eight in the morning. We're going to catch the bus which passes through here at eight forty. I want to be out of here before the forger get's caught and risks us being connected to him. He's good, but his security measures are pitiful."

* * *

"What are you doing?" asked Sandy, turning away as Hermione began to unbutton her shirt.

"Making sure the Hitwizards don't catch me," she explained. "And don't worry, I'm not taking off all my clothing, I just need to be able to paint the runes on my arms and upper chest. You can turn around."

Carefully, Sandy turned around, ready to close his eyes should her words prove false. At least she'd waited to start stripping until they were in their room at the inn.

And then Sandy blinked, more than slightly confused. "Why are you wearing a corset?"

"Because a bra really isn't an option," Hermione explained, somewhat distractedly. "And because once you have a certain amount on top," she motioned toward her impressive bust line then slid off her skirt, "you need to have some support or you bounce around uncomfortably. And that's not even including the sorts of back problems you can have or that can be made worse by lack of proper support. And of course there's an entire school of thought which suggests that wearing a corset is more comfortable and offers more support than wearing a bra. And honestly, after this week I'm beginning to think they're correct."

"This week?" he said, latching on to something, anything, other than the debate on proper breast support.

The corset had been put on over a long, cotton slip. The corset covered the slip from her hips to up, over her breasts. There were metal clasps running down the front and laces in the back. He'd been born in 1927, well after corsets had begun their fall from fashion and had only seen a woman wear one in historical films, but he could tell that the corset was not laced particularly tightly, causing him to give an internal sigh of relief. He didn't particularly relish the idea of Hermione hurting herself for fashion by tight lacing. Even with the corset presumable shaping her body-it was possibly why she had a nice hourglass figure-it was still obvious that she was far… softer than most girls aspired to be around the middle.

"About a week and a half ago some friends and I got into an… interesting situation," explained Hermione, stumbling for a moment over finding the correct phrase in French. She pushed the inch thick straps of her slip over her shoulder and slipped her arms out. "I do tend to get into interesting situations," she laughed. It was then that Sandy noticed the gauze taped to her skin. It started at her right shoulder, going over her collar bone, down between her breasts and under the corset. "Anyway, I was hit by a rather nasty-and illegal-curse."

"How badly injured are you?" he asked softly. If she had internal injuries, that would probably explain the corset. Although from what he understood, it was now thought that wrapping broken ribs could cause problems with the lungs. However if the injuries were bad enough, that might offset any possible dangers.

"It nearly sliced me in half," she admitted. "I'm lucky I survived long enough to receive medical attention. Anyway, my internal organs and my diaphragm were repaired relatively quickly, but it'll be another three weeks before the effects of the curse will dissipate enough for my ribs to be healed. And until it does, my ribs aren't going to heal at all. They've been stabilized with a spell, but the corset offers extra support the spell can't give my rib cage. I was lucky they managed to heal my collar bone almost completely otherwise I'd be in a sling right now. Not to mention I still have a rather nasty cut from my right shoulder to my left hip. Those medical potions are what keep me functioning."

"So the corset keeps your ribs from moving too much until they can be healed."

"Yes, it does." She sat down before a mirror and began to paint simple black designs upon her skin.

"How illegal is what you're doing right now?"

"Technically, very. But I can't really bring myself to care." She looked down, then turned to look him in the eyes. "You're like me. You tend to get yourself into interesting situations don't you?"

He could, he suppose, deny that, but it would no doubt be a lie she would catch. So instead, he said, "It's more that I tend to spend time around people who get into… interesting situations. This isn't exactly-what's the saying?-my first rodeo." It was close enough to the truth-he'd never really been involved in the strange and unusual until he became Wesley's sidekick. "But I haven't been involved in anything particularly… interesting in the past two years." Not since he'd… awakened… from the decades he'd spent… contained.

"One second." Hermione said something that sounded Germanic in origin. The ink glowed for a moment, then disappeared. "This will only hide me when I'm not using magic. If I start throwing spells around, they'll eventually figure out they're coming from me." She started to dress herself again. "So, if you don't mind my asking, what sort of interesting situations do you normally get into?"

"Oh you know, the usual," said Sandy, attempting to joke away the question, "Saving the world, fighting gods, solving crimes, capturing criminals, traveling through space and time with pretty witches."

She stared at him wide eyed for several long moments before announcing, "Merlin's balls. You're telling the truth."

"What?" It seemed his gambit had failed, although it might be possible to salvage the situation. "I was joking."

"No, you weren't. Dad does the same exact thing when people ask about his family or what he did before entering dental school. So what are you, really? A mercenary or a hunter? Or are you a cape?" She let out a disbelieving sigh. "You're a cape." She shook her head. "You're not going to confirm any of this, are you?"

Sandy said nothing, having come to the conclusion that there wasn't much else to do, unless he intended to tell her the truth.

"Alright. If you are in a cape-wait, you said you haven't had much to do with interesting situations for years. Did you retire?" Hermione really was too smart for her own good. "You retired then. I'd ask if you were some other cape's sidekick, but I don't think you'd say one way or the other." She paused a faraway look upon her face. "I'll tell you what, if you're interested, I'll trade. A story about an interesting situation you got into for a story about an interesting situation I got into."

"I've never been much of a story teller."

"Understandable. But the offer's still open, should you ever change your mind."

* * *

Hermione looked down, doing her best to be unnoticeable, to ensure not a trace of magic escaped. She concentrated on her knitting, trying to pretend she'd every right to be there. Sandy was doing far better than she, and Hermione could not help but hope that they would simply take her for a normal, frightened woman.

She looked up when the Hitwizard and army officer finally worked their way back to them. They took the passports and various other papers, looked them over, then handed them back. It took half an hour for the entire bus to be checked, but eventually they were on their way.

She looked out the window just in time to see a man being dragged from the vehicle next to theirs. Her eyes widened and the blood drained from her face. She recognized that man. Trying not to wince, she watched and listened as the man begged for his life, then, in a last desperate act, began to throw curses.

"What are you…" said Sandy, trailing off as he leaned to get a good look at what was happening. "How did I not notice that?"

"They probably threw up an area ward to ensure the non-magicals didn't notice anything out of the ordinary," Hermione explained, flinching when the man was finally caught. "At least I know they probably weren't looking for me."

"Then why did I-?"

"The betrothal. When a non-magical is betrothed to a magical, the wards don't always qualify the non-magical as a non-magical." She let out a sigh. "These people might not even remember that they were stopped at the border."

"Why do you think they weren't looking for us?"

"The man they just took from that car was Emilio Peron-no relation to the rather famous Peron family in Argentina. In about three days he'll be put to death and become a martyr. He's one of the leaders of the rebels fighting against the so-called legitimate government. Anyway, they had a huge manhunt going on during the summer of '43 until they caught him." She paused, "As soon as we hit the next town, I can start using magic again. At least until we get to the next border."

* * *

It should not have been this easy to make their way through Europe and over the various borders, yet here they were in Germany. The closest they'd come to discovery had been the incident at the border between Portugal and Spain. Sandy could not help but feel absolutely amazed. He'd never thought this possible-the Spear of Destiny had ensured that the members of the JSA had no hope of entering Germany.

"So, any suggestion on how to find her?"

Hermione pulled out a map of the city of Berlin and spread it out over the table of the room Sandy had rented. "Three guesses and the first two don't count."

With a fountain pen, Hermione carefully inscribed various symbols around the room, particularly the doors, window, and vents.

"What are you doing?"

"Shielding the room so that nobody detects the magic of the scrying spell. The last thing we need is for Grindewald's forces to come for us or send the Gestapo for us."

"Oh."

This time he was prepared to bandage Hermione's wound. And prepared to catch her once the spell was finished. Judging by the glowing dot, at least LeStrange was still in Berlin. He picked her up and placed her in a chair.

She took one glance at the map and paled dramatically.

"What's wrong?" demanded Sandy.

"LeStrange is in," Hermione said something in German which loosely translated as "The Keep." She cleared her throat. "It's like the enclave in the Lower East Side. It's a set of roughly four blocks which contains a one block long market, the rest are the living residences of the local witches and wizards. It's actually like a little, self sufficient village. I went there three summers ago. During the war-this war-it was firmly under the control of Grindewald and his forces. Our only real chance of getting in there and out again alive is to brazen our way through. Pretend we belong there."

Sandy nodded his understanding. "What supplies do you need?"

"I'll need to get a dirndl on the way, but that should be it. We're as prepared as we're going to be," explained Hermione. "We can't use the pendants unless we've no other choice."

"Understood." The pendants had been deactivated since they'd entered Berlin anyway. "So why a dirndl?"

"Two reasons; they're currently a very popular form of dress for non-magical German women and two, unlike what I'm wearing at the moment, it's acceptable for a German witch who wants to blend in with non-magicals to wear a dirndl."

She bit her lip, then ran her hand over her hair, lightening it as it she went, until her hair and eyebrows were a mousey brown color, rather than her normal dark, almost black hair. "How does this look?"

"Good. Uh, why…"

"The last thing I need is for somebody to recognize me from a fifty year old mug shot." After a moment's thought, she covered her face with both hands, then let them drop. In place of her normal, delicate features was a nose that looked like it had been broken and healed slightly crooked, dull, blue eyes a touch too far apart, lips that were just a little too thin and flawless pale skin without the smattering of freckles Sandy had thought rather attractive. "I look completely different, right?"

"You do. Is this an illusion or something?"

"Or something," she laughed, a haunted look in her eyes which bellied her apparent amusement. "Let's get going."

* * *

Hermione tilted her head, looking for the proper alley.

"Is this it?" Sandy asked quietly, nodding in the general direction of a shady looking space between two buildings.

"Yes, it is."

Hermione led him into the alley. It was a back way into the Keep she'd found the summer before Third year. Admittedly, it was not a closely guarded secret, but at least using this entrance would ensure that people thought she and Sandy had been there before and knew their way around.

She actually felt far more comfortable taking Sandy to the Keep than she would have taking him to Diagon Alley. Grindewald and his forces had cared far more about power than they had about so-called blood purity. They wouldn't care at all about a girl betrothed to Muggle man, so long as she didn't put up much of a fuss.

As for Diagon Alley, it was a bit of a crap shoot as to how they would react to a witch bringing her non-magical betrothed with her into the Alley. Either they would warn her about such "borderline treasonous" behavior or they would insist they marry immediately. Or possibly both of them would be put to trial. Of course, any of those options were preferable to what could happen to a witch who brought a non-magical to Diagon Alley without the security of a handfasting.

"This way."

Walking down the street, she concentrated on looking at her feet, or occasionally glancing to the side, as most of the women were doing. By this point the war had been going very badly-at least for Grindewald's forces-and many normally "upstanding" German witches and wizards had either begun to flee to the countryside and barricade themselves inside their family estates, or left the country. Those that were left in places like the Keep were diehard Grindewald supporters who simply did not believe their master would be defeated or who did not believe that non-magical bombs could pierce the Keep's wards. Of course, they were right about that, the Allies' bombs had never pierced the wards, but the British and the Russians had overrun the Keep in 1946.

"So why is this place called the Keep?" asked Sandy.

"It started off as a fortress, back during the reign of Charlemagne. If you look over there you can see the original wooden fortress-it's the local government building and jailhouse now. A village sprouted up around the fortress as the centuries passed. Anyway, both the fortress and the little enclave are known collectively as the Keep."

Hermione let out a low groan as she realized precisely where LeStrange was. "Let's find a tavern and get some lunch."

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I'll explain in a little bit."

The duo went to a tavern where Hermione ordered two butterbeers and enough food for the two of them for lunch. Once they were served, Hermione threw up a set of privacy charms, which made anybody who tried to listen in think they were talked about the non-magical war with Russia on the Eastern Front.

"LeStrange is inside the fortress," explained Hermione as she dug into her sauerkraut and bratwurst. "She's probably been imprisoned. I can get us in there and out again, but I'm not sure how we could get LeStrange out."

"How would we get in and out?"

"Polyjiuce potion. I made it while we were in New York. We knock out one of the guards, take some of their hair or some other genetic material and put it in the polyjuice potion. It will turn you into whoever's genetic material is used for roughly an hour per dose. I'll find a secretary and do the same with the method I used to change my appearance earlier. Neither polyjuice or that… method work well with different genders and polyjuice would interact badly with my medications. On the way out, we modify the guard's memories so that he doesn't know he lost time."

"Reacts badly with your medication how?"

"Wounds reopening, massive internal bleeding, seizures, possibly a stroke. Let's just leave it at it would be very bad." She had been very aware of potion interaction since Dolohov had hit her with that curse. While the Cruciatus treatment was safe enough to take with all the other potions she was on, many other potions reacted adversely.

"Alright. So what's the problem with getting LeStrange out of there?"

"I don't know if it's the right thing to do."

"What do you mean?"

"It's, well… it's nearly impossible to successfully imprison a witch or wizard."

A look of understanding crossed Sandy's face. "But she was imprisoned."

"And she broke out. Azkaban may supposedly be the most secure magical prison on the planet, but it is very possible to break out or be broken out. I turn her in, in the current atmosphere in England, she'll be out within the month. Voldemort will have her, and any of her fellow Death Eaters still in jail broken out. What would be the use? Our government is hopelessly corrupt and we're one skirmish away from all out, open war. I bring LeStrange back, and she'll just be one more soldier ready and willing to torture, maim, and murder innocent people. So yes, I'm not sure it's even worth it to bring her in."

Hermione sighed, taking a long drink of the beer. "Hell, the wanted posters for LeStrange actually say 'dead or alive.' And they offer more money for her dead than they do for her alive. Even they know how dangerous she is. When they finally brought her in fourteen years ago, after she and her cohorts had tortured the Longbottoms to insanity-they're still catatonic, I go to school with their son-she had a confirmed body count of about three thousand seven hundred, most of whom where non-magical. It's believed her actual body count is over five thousand, but nobody can prove that one way or the other. They sentenced her to life in prison, instead of execution, which is what, legally, she should have received for crimes, because she was-is-essentially nobility and most of her magical victims were culturally, if not legally, considered next to dirt. It's like that serial killer Elizabeth something-or-another, uh… Bathory I think. (2) She was a noblewoman a couple centuries ago. The woman killed who knows how many women and girls, and all she got was a slap on the wrist. Maybe it would be better to… arrange for an accident."

"Would you really be willing to kill her?"

"It wouldn't be the first time," she admitted.

"What?"

"It wouldn't be the first time I killed somebody," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Maybe it was the high stress nature of the situation, but she was confessing things to Sandy she'd never told another living being. Or maybe it was just nice to be able to speak to somebody who was distanced from the situation, who unlike Harry didn't seem to have many worries of his own. It wasn't exactly the wisest thing she'd ever done, but she'd never been able to tell others about this facet of her life. Harry wouldn't even admit to himself that he'd killed Professor Quirrell, she couldn't tell him about what she'd done. She knew, on an instinctive level that it was something Harry just couldn't accept, couldn't deal with at this point in his life. And part of her was terrified that Harry just wouldn't have the stomach to properly fight a war.

"What happened?"

She looked down, unwilling to see the expression on his face. "It was one of Dad's interesting situations-it bled out onto the family about two years ago. I did what I had to, to protect my little brothers, keep them alive. Maybe it isn't quite up to the moral standards of a cape, but when last I checked, self defense and the defense of others was still legal."

"How old are your brothers?" Sandy asked, his voice surprisingly gentle.

"Fin-Finton is eleven as of next week and Gawain is six. I was supposed to babysit them while Mom and Dad had one last date before my sister was born. Mom was eight months along with Theo-uh, Theodora-at the time. Mom's pregnant again-it's not far enough along to tell whether it will be a boy or girl. And every day, I'm terrified a Death Eater or some other witch or wizard I've pissed off will come for them. And it would be so easy, so very easy to stop it all before it even happens, but that wouldn't solve anything at all."

A slightly crazed laugh escaped. Angrily, she brushed aside several tears which managed to fall. "Of course, killing Riddle wouldn't really solve anything. Sure, there would never be a Voldemort, but his minions-most of whom think rape, torture, murder, and general mayhem is all in good fun-would still exist, the political instability would still exist. And who's to say the results wouldn't be worse than it is now? The British Wizarding Enclave has been working its way toward civil war for the better part of the past two centuries. Voldemort's first rise to power and the first civil war weren't really much of a surprise to anybody who knew what was going on politically. He wasn't even the only political dissident with a substantial following and power at the time, merely the most disruptive."

"Who is Riddle?"

"Tom Riddle is the real name of the self styled Lord Voldemort. He's only sixteen right now, but he's already killed Myrtle and no matter how powerful he is at the moment, I'd still be able to kill him. LeStrange is one of his minions."

"Are there any options other than killing her or handing her in to the authorities?" asked Sandy, who seemed to have absorbed and processed the information about Riddle and moved on with little fuss.

"I have no idea."

"How do you Wizarding settle things legally without prisons?"

Hermione's head shot up. "We used magic. There's always trial by combat, you know, if you're innocent you win, if you're guilty you die, but it doesn't really work and LeStrange would probably beat me. You can settle personal problems with duels to the death-same problem. There are also spells, curses. Maybe something like the threefold curse could be used. It's what those New Age lunatics base their rule of three on. (3) Basically, every action is reflected upon you threefold, be it for good or bad. Whether she lives or dies would be up to her own actions. We could put a couple spells on her to ensure she could not use or reveal any knowledge of the future and hit her with the curse. We'd have to follow her, but she'd probably be dead within a couple days. Or we can call for a judgment. Call down one of the gods and ask them to judge her and her actions. (4)"

"Judgment?"

"It's risky, but probably our best bet. Whichever god answers would look at everything she's done and decide what her punishment-or reward-is. It could be death or some really creative, and nasty, punishment like the Greek gods are so good at. Or they could decide to punish us for calling us down and reward her. I really don't know what the outcome would be."

"No, that's just too risky. The various gods of most pantheons are just too unpredictable. Isn't there some way to make sure she couldn't use magic?" There was something in his expression which made Hermione realize that Sandy had experience with these gods.

Hermione shook her head. "That is serious black magic. The sort of thing you could get executed for doing. And I don't mean executed by having a dementor eat your soul, I mean execution by being pushed through the Veil of Death. It's believed to be a direct portal to the afterlife"

"Why is it black magic?"

She shook her head. "It's not really black magic, black magic. Technically, the scrying spell I've used is more magically damning than stripping a person of their magic. It's more that taking a person's magic from them is the worst thing a person could do to another person, and I understand completely why it's considered that. This is permanent, not something that could be reversed."

"Let me get this straight, LeStrange is not executed for killing almost four thousand people because she's nobility, the prisons are not actually capable of holding her for long, given half a chance, the woman would continue to torture, maim, and kill people, and _you_ would be the one executed for taking away most of the danger she poses to society by taking her magic." The look on Sandy's face said everything.

She flushed, feeling rather stupid. Being striped of one's magic would be devastating, but Hermione could understand quite well Sandy's viewpoint. "What do you want me to do?"

"You are going to strip her of her powers and bind her so that she cannot speak of what will happen in the future or who she really is. We'll institutionalize her and ensure they take her for the rest of her natural life. We also need to find out what, if anything she's done which might have changed the past so that we can take care of it."

"Alright." Sandy was right. Her refusal to take LeStrange's magic had been ridiculous. "Here's what we need to do. We go in there. I'll stun her and transfigure her into a small animal and then we'll smuggle her out. I can ward a room well enough that she will be temporarily incapable of escape. In the long run, I've no doubt she'd be able to find her way out. I'll use veritaserum-it's a truth serum-and question her while you stand guard and make sure she doesn't manage to escape-it won't work properly if she has no magic and I don't know off the top of my head what truth serum works properly on non-magicals, so we have to do it then. Once we know everything we need to, I strip her of her magic and curse her so she can't talk about anything sensitive. Then we find a mental institution."

Now that they had a tentative plan in place, Hermione allowed herself to relax slightly. She waved down a waitress for a second butterbeer each. Hermione stilled, noting a man that looked far too familiar. After a moment, she brushed it off. He was probably just the grandfather or great uncle of one of her classmates.

* * *

(1) Sandy the Golden Boy and the Sandman did indeed use wirepoons (and yes, there are any number of jokes which can be made at the name and yes, I often fight the urge to giggle when I use the term). They were like guns which shot out grappling hooks.

(2) Countess Elizabeth Bathory de Esced of Hungary. Considered one of the earliest known serial killers, she is believed to have killed as many as six hundred girls. In punishment for her crimes, she was walled up in a set of rooms, where she died four years later.

(3) Views expressed by characters do not actually reflect upon my beliefs. It has been shown in DC comics that most neo-pagans, wiccans, and so on are generally misguided and unaware of what real magic entails. Likewise, I think somebody like Hermione would not hold them in particularly good regard.

(4) In mythology, the various gods did occasionally pass judgment on mortals because of their actions. In my view, the Wizarding, who had such fantastical powers, would only believe in gods if they had some sort of proof of their existence.


End file.
